Baseball style cap : Little Pattie, Australian entertainer Vietnam

Dark blue cotton twill baseball style cap, now mostly faded to light brown. The front of the crown, which is reinforced inside the black cotton lining with a band of clear plastic, is embroidered in white cotton, 'VIETNAM SPECIAL SERVICES ENTERTAINER 1966'. The crown is constructed from six triangular panels, each bearing a metal reinforced eyelet for ventilation, which are covered by a self fabric covered button where they join in the centre. The brown plastic sweatband is joined at the centre back by a band of elastic, which is marked in black, 'PATTIE'. A small red and white, diamond shaped size label, marked '55', is sewn to the proper right sweatband.

This baseball cap, one of a small number especially manufactured for use by members of the Special Services Entertainment group in Vietnam, 1966, was intended to be given to Little Pattie during her 1966 tour of Vietnam. It ended up in the possession of another singer, Jill Lindfield, who also toured Vietnam in the same year.

Little Pattie (born 17 March 1949 as Patricia Thelma Amphlett) and Col Joye (born 1936 as Colin Frederick Jacobsen) and the Joye Boys undertook a tour of Vietnam, Borneo, and American clubs in Japan and Singapore, organised to provide entertainment for Australian troops by FACE, the Forces Advisory Committee on Entertainment. This, the third tour arranged by FACE, left Sydney on 10 August 1966 and spent 10 days in Vietnam. At the time, Little Pattie was just 17.

Besides Little Pattie, the tour featured the Joye Boys (Ken Jacobsen, bass; John Bogie, drums; Bruce Gurr, organ; Norman Day, lead guitar and Ron Patton, sax) and their escort officer, Major Donald Robert Chappell. They performed two shows in Borneo on 14 August before arriving in Vung Tau, South Vietnam on 17 August. Here they gave two shows for patients at 36 Evacuation Hospital and the Australian Logistics Support Group. Major Chappell reported 'these concert parties are a terrific morale booster. Members in outposts marched 4 miles through jungle to come and see show. Whole party spent 4 hours in heat mixing with soldiers in preference to returning to rest for evening show'. This set the tenor for the remaining shows - the band members usually devoting their scheduled rest time to mixing with the servicemen, despite the heat and humidity.

There were three shows scheduled for 18 August at the Australian Task Force Base at Nui Dat. Nui Dat had already been the target of Vietcong artillery and mortars on the night of 16/17 August and the organisers of the show were nervous about their entertainers becoming casualties. The group were briefed on the need to evacuate if necessary, and were helicoptered to Nui Dat, a twenty minute flight from Vung Tau, on the morning of 18 August, arriving at 8.50 am. One helicopter was required just for the band's equipment. Some 3,000 Australians enjoyed the three shows that day; the first started at 10.00 am and the entertainment was described by Chappell as 'almost non-stop'.

By 3.40 pm that afternoon, the first patrol clashes between 6 Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment and members of the Vietcong 275th Regiment were occurring in the Long Tan plantation and by 4.00 pm the encounter was growing into a major battle. At Nui Dat, only four kilometres away, the third and last performance was coming to an end and the sounds of battle could clearly be heard. Little Pattie recalls being given an urgent 'wind-up' signal just before the scheduled 4.00 pm finish; she and the other entertainers were quickly evacuated by Iroquois helicopter as a warning siren echoed around the base. A heavy downpour started as they rose above Nui Dat, and she distinctly recalls seeing 'thousands of orange lights' in the jungle below her as the Battle for Long Tan raged.

The group continued performing, at Vung Tau on 19 August ('Little Pattie a great success,' reported Major Chappell, 'Extracted party from hospitality shown by officers and ORs with difficulty'); 21 August, at the USO at Saigon; 93 Evacuation Hospital and 173 Airborne Division on 22 August; and other USO venues around Saigon on 23 and 24 August, where the tour ended.

Jillian Lindfield was a member of a scratch group of entertainers put together for a tour which followed in mid-October 1966. The members included comedian Joe Lunn, accordionist Merv Bee and singers Kim Kaban and Diane Buchanan. None of them had ever performed together before. They arrived at Vung Tau on 18 October and followed a similar route through various Australian and American bases until 28 October. Like the Col Joye troupe, they also performed three shows in one day at Nui Dat, on 20 October. Lindfield recalled of Vietnam that the 'atmosphere [was] always pregnant with violence'.

This cap was intended for Little Pattie's use, but was probably left behind at one of the venues. As Jill Lindfield's group passed through the same venues only two months later, it was likely handed to her at this point. She retained it until passing it onto the War Memorial in 2009.